


An Endless Night

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Epistolary, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-17 19:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 6,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12372726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: Captain James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, late of the 51st Highland Division and prisioner in Oflag VII Cprison Camp, Salzburg  writes home to his wife Claire in a desperate attempt to remember his homeland.





	1. Winter, 1940

**Winter, 1940**

 

My dear Sassenach,

 

I sit and I wait and I think of home. They gave us each a scrap of paper and some charcoal to write two days ago and I have sat and stared at its’ blankness; knowing that these words may be the last that I have the chance to tell you.

 

Treasure their memory, _mo Sorcha_ , as I do yours.

 

The lie curls around my mouth, creeping through my wame, blossoming in the grey, harsh light, for I know, we know, that we can never come home.

 

They shot another prisioner as the dawn crept over the trees and my heart cracks; bloody fragments glissening over the German snow. Day and night have little meaning here in the depths of winter, the sky is an endless stretch of cool, grey blankness, the world frozen in an iron grip of cold and I long for a Highland sunset, burning out over the moor, blazing in your eyes, longing for things I know that I cannot have.

 

 He was bent over the ropes that held him soaked to the skin and too weak to shiver. A Cameron infantryman with a srap of moss coloured tartan crusted scarlet protruding from the pocket of his battledress. His eyes were dark as the guards surrounded him, dark and searching, piercing as the dusk. The stars burned in those eyes and the sky screamed as he swayed against the stake that held him.

 

The words deafened me more than the shots.

 

 _‘Slan leat, a chariad choir’,_ the words ripple against a frozen tongue.

 

_Luck to you, dear friend._

 

I see him fall against the ropes again and again and I cannot help him. I cannot help him, I can do nothing as the volley cracks the snow covered stillness and tell myself over and over that one day, one day soon, this hell will be finished. One day soon, I will walk over the moors to Lallybroch with the heather burning a blaze of golden purple, the lonesome cry of the grouse on the hill and see ye come to me, wi’ your hair all curled and-

 

Ye and the children both, _mo nighean donn._ Tell Faith to keep up with her studies and Brianna that I will teach her how to shoot and Willie…

 

_A Dhia!_

Tell Willie that I love him, that his Da will be home soon. Is he too young to understand where his Da has gone,  _mo duinne_? The lines of his face, all bonny and burnished wi’ freckles, bolster these endless nights and I pray not.

 

Kiss them for me. Protect them for me.

 

Your devoted husband,

 

**James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser**

**51 st Highlanders Division**


	2. January, 1941

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> January, 1941
> 
> In the depths of the Swiss winter, Captain James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, late of the 51st Highland Division and prisioner in Oflag VII Cprison Camp, Salzburg writes home to his wife Claire and prays for Spring.

**January? 1941**

**Oflag VII Cprison Camp**

My dear Sassenach,

 

In this bitter cold, it feels like a lifetime ago since we held the Abbeville bridgehead on the Somme. I can still hear the Staukas as they wailed over our offensive; a thin, grey hope that help from HC could be found. Even now, after all that has happened, the thin, sharp wail of their engines, their wings plunging through the sky to meet us pierce my dreams.

 

Many of the men are succumbing to dystenry and those that have not are too weak to stand. Often, I sit here and think of the frogmarch through France; think of the endless, choking heat and the ghosts of the men I loved, men whom I trusted falling by the roadside. In my heart of hearts I would say that I could name them, pray for them as we were shoved onwards, but that would be a lie.

 

That would be a lie, _mo graidiah,_ because there was no time. I tell myself over and over again that I could have knelt by them, held their heads as they gasped for water- men that were boys little older than Faith and Brianna crying out like bairns- but if I had done that, I would not be here. In so many of those faces I saw Willie, that boyish joy flickering through lines and bends now wasted from hunger.  

 

 _Maithair,_ they cried; tongues too heavy for their mouths. Their bodies crumpled to the cobbled, dusty ground, their guts roiling from the fetid water that we gasped at in moments of quiet.

 

 _Maithair,_ they wimpered through the night, cradling the tattered remains of their boots as we were shoved into our night accomodation. The soles of our feet are little more than blackened ribbons of bloody skin, bound together by sheer exhaustion and force of will.

 

 I tried _mo duinne,_ I tried.

 

It was times like these that I saw the children clearest,  their faces shining amid the fog and pain of the march.

 

_Faith wi’ her hair in two thick plaits with a book in her lap, feather light veins running under pale, freckled skin, her face alight with questions. I can see her now,  running in from the kailyard wi’ news of three speckled sparrow’s eggs of the brighest blue cupped so carefully in the nest above the corncrib._

_Brianna. A Dhia, sweet Brianna, wi’ eyes like sapphires and a mind to match that of her Mam’s. Send her to bed if she’s awake now, my Sassenach and tell her that the days will pass more quickly if she sleeps._

****

**_I will come home soon._ **

****

_And Willie… Have ye told him yet? I ken fine well that it was his birthday this week just gone and have carved him a small trinket, something… Something to remember me by. I do not know whether it will reach you, whether my last letter has reached you, but part of me still holds on to that hope._

_Tell him that I’ll take him down to the river wi’ the rods and show him how tae fish, soon as I can._

_He’ll like that._

_And you, my love. Ye’ve come to me so often in my dreams, kneeling by the hassock where I’ve slept, curled against the body of another and yet ye never touch me._

Kiss the children for me. Tell them that I think of them always, that their names are the last words on my lips before sleep.

 

The guards took my rosary when we were marched out at dawn from St-Valery but they cannot take my children.

 

**The guards took my rosary when we were marched out at dawn from St-Valery but they cannot take my children.**

 

I tell myself that it willnae be long now, my Sassenach. It canna be long now, as I huddle beside the body of George Macdonald Fraser, a private of the Gordons regiment and listen to the lone whistle of a train somewhere in the valleys, rattling on towards the East.

 

In my dreams I kiss your curls _mo nighean don_ and love you with every fragment of my being.

 

 Love without shame.

 

I remain forever,

 

Your devoted husband,

**James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser**

**51 st Highlanders Division**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	3. March, 1941

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead of the promise of new life, the coming of Spring brings more heartache for Captain James Fraser and his comrades as he tries to keep the hope of home and family alive in his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all those who have taken the time to read and review this! Your feedback means the world to me!

**March, 1941**

**Oflag VII Cprison Camp**

My dear Sassenach,

 

The chill that comes with the spring thaw has buried its’ teeth into my hands, so writing has been impossible. I have tried to keep them as warm and dry as possible, but warmth is a distant dream here and so if this letter becomes illegible, you will ken the reason why.

 

Joe Fraser is dead. Not shot, Gods be praised, but dead from the butchery of the guards. His lips were frozen blue and his eyes so big that I could have sworn that there were stars burning there, burning his spirit back to Lallybroch. It was all he could do to squeeze my hand and make me promise that I would tell Kirsty that he’d died trying to reach her and his weans. He was always a thin man, was Joe, but to see him in that state; far, far worse than when he got out, makes my heart crack wi’ grief.

 

They’d come for him a month ago, the action so silent that none of us understood why. I tried to question the guards but was forced back and have two broken fingers for my trouble. Dinna fash yourself _mo Sorcha_ , I can bear their pain.

 

 When he came back, there was a rag tied over his eyes and his hands were bound in bloody scraps of cloth and he could barely speak, his tongue hanging huge and cracked from lack of fluid.

 

Forgive me, _mo nighean don,_ for I do not know whether I have the strength to write what happened next.

 

They’d broken his fingers and taken his fingernails, throwing him into solitary confinement for a month. The blood on his hands was crusted black in places and his eyes blinked round and owlish, milk-white and red rimmed, hardly knowing who I was. He couldn’t lift his head to drink and died in the light of a slate coloured dawn, wi’ his head in my lap.

 

If it could bring any comfort to Kirsty, tell her that his last words were of Lallybroch, his eyes burning with the far-off glow of a moorland sunset.

**_Slan leat, a chariad choir._ **

****

**_Slan leat._ **

 

Kiss the children for me and beg their forgiveness that this letter is not longer.

 

Tell Faith that I am proud of her, whatever her marks in the exams turn out to be. That she will always make me proud

 

Remind Brianna that she is loved wi’ all my heart. That not a day passes when I do not see her grinning at me in my minds’ eye, her smile a block of sunlight in this bleak hell.

 

And Willie… Why does it pain me so to think of him? Is it because that whenever I think of him, I see him as a bairn at your breast? Is it because I see the light of motherhood that floods ye so completely, that perfect glow of love and joy that makes my heart ache? That I see you as ye had been in the hospital after his birth, with him at your breast, the dimples catching at your cheeks, your hair all washed and curled about your face, a perfect mask of contentment in sleep?

 

_Mo chiride,_ my heart grieves that we cannot be together, that I willnae see the children change and flourish, that they grow still older without their father as the clock of the year keeps turning. That this war, this damnable war against an enemy that at sometimes feels invisible and yet all too soon is far too real, strives to keep me from those whom my heart aches for.

 

But _mo graidiah_ , know this. **Know that you are never alone**.

 

I remain forever,

 

Your devoted husband,

 

**James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser**

**51 st Highlanders Division**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	4. April, 1941

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Lallybroch, Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp Fraser writes to her husband, not knowing if or when he will receive her letter but determined to keep the hope that he will return to them alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all those who have taken the time to read and review this! Your feedback means the world to me!

**April, 1941**

**Lallybroch, Scotland**

My dearest Jamie,

 

It’s been two years. Two years, three months and seven hundred and thirty days since you were last on leave. Two years, three months and seven hundred and thirty days since you swung the children up in turn to kiss them goodbye and we clung to each other in a fog of smoke and farewell kisses as the train began to pull out of Inverness station, promising that we would be together again before we knew it. Each morning I cross off another day on the calender, gaze at the clock above the kitchen sink and try to smile even though a little fragment of my heart is being chipped away.

 

My love, I do not know if this letter will reach you and yet I sit in your study, surrounded by ghosts, the ghosts of children, of parents, of lives lived and loved and held in the very fabric this room and pick up your fountain pen, lying just as you left it, knowing that I must write **something.**

Brianna still watches the window as often as I’ll let her. She waits like a patient dog with her hands often wrapped around Bran’s neck, gazing out into the kailyard, longing for your shadow to pass under the archway.

 

 It breaks my heart to see her so, to have to tell her yet again that there has been no official word, not yet. Often I’ll find Faith in here with the scrapbook that you helped her make when she was leaving school, or curled up with Willie in the wingbacked chair, the photograph taken at our wedding on her lap. Sometimes, I will wake to feel the ghost of your arm curled around my waist, the strength and glow of you pressed close, the love and life that streamed in from the stained glass windows at the church in Broch Morda as we said our vows. I remember the way you looked at me that day, a smile shining in eyes filled with love and protection and promise and pray that the day comes when we can look at each other the same way again.

 

‘That’s Da’, she’ll say, trying very hard to be brave and Willie will gaze up at her, with his eyes that are so very like yours, breaking my heart anew. I took him down to the main loch yesterday and we rowed out to the island and watched the kingfishers, sharp flashes of brilliant blue dazzling against the dappled leaves and the occasional brown trout breaching up for air.

 

How I wish that you could be here to teach him the rudiments of your rods, to lie on the riverbank in the green quiet of a summer’s evening and show him the mysteries of tickling trout!

 

A telegram from the Home Office came last week for Kirsty Fraser. Oh my darling, the hope that you were with Joe in his last moments makes the knowledge that we will never have him come stamping through the back kitchen with dogs and children in tow, never again hear you two descend into the warm, deep Gaelic of your childhods over a dram of whisky, that Mairi and Hector will grow up without their father, slightly easier to bear.

 

Is it selfish of me to think such things?

 

Is it selfish of me to hold the children a little tighter each evening and pray that a piece of little yellow paper in a small, crisp enevelope never comes? That I never have to see the telegram boy, usually no older than Faith, scuffle his sharply polished boots in the gravel and refuse to meet my eyes?

 

I don’t know.

 

But what I do know is that **you will come home. Soon.**

 

My love, we must believe it, because to live without belief is to live without a heart and I cannot do that. I will not do that.

 

I love you.

 

I’ll wait for you.

 

**We’ll wait for you.**

I remain forever,

 

Your devoted wife,

 

**Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp Fraser**

**Lady Broch Tuarach**


	5. August, 1941

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the middle of an August that feels like the depths of December, Captain Jamie Fraser shakes with camp fever and tries to find solace in the memory of those he loves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all those who have taken the time to read and review this! Your feedback means the world to me!

**August, 1941**

**Oflag VII Cprison Camp**

My dear Sassenach,

 

I am truly sorry that I have been unable to write sooner. Though it is August, revines of cold still cling stubbornly to the camp, trenches of iced mud that plunge our feet into pools of frigid water, soaking our boots until our ribboned feet shake blue-black with foot rot.

 

The food that can be spared is rotten and often rancid. A slice of weeviled black bread chopped painstainkingly into cubes is divided between three men and dunked into what could pass off as beef broth, but more often than not is tepid water with a waft of meat or turnips and cabbage passed over the pot.

 

Whether it has been the fact that someone has pissed in our water, or I have simply been too long in damp corners, hugging my hands under my arms to try and protect my fingers, I do not know. Regardless, the fever has come, not caring who it claims as its’ victims and with it our bowels have turned to liquid. We shit out our humanity, crouched like dogs in the mud over the latrine pits, wracked with shivers that freeze us to the grey-brown snow slurry at our feet.

 

Most men curl into the darkest corners of their berths, their stomachs heaving painfully although there is precious little for them left to vomit. Fevered blood sloshes through through us all like mercury, grinding away at our strength, making those that can shudder and shake and cry like weans for their parents.

 

_Maithar._

_Maithar._

 

I canna help them.

 

It is all I can do to to sit against the damp, wood wall of the hut and squeeze my eyes shut against the fire that has erupted behind my eyes; the charcoal trembling between fingers slick with sweat and grime.

 

Last night I dreamt of the children, standing on the platform at Inverness railway station. They were trapped in a fog of smoke, their faces blurred and hollow with hunger, their eyes huge and dark as another train rattled past. I could hear Faith weeping as I crossed the last yards to meet them, see her turn to Brianna and draw Willie closer, their thin shoulders heaving in united grief.

 

They didna see me.

 

They couldna hear me.

 

**I’m here, my loves, I’m here!**

 

 I tried to reach out for them, hearing my heart crack wi’ grief at the sight of them all, looking so small and frail wi’ no-one to guide them and they shifted, swirling  and fading like mists on the moor behind the house.

 

They shifted into you _mo nighean don_ , walking through the hut, your hair caught with strips of tattered moonlight. You moved like a sleepwalker to me, moving so softly, it felt like ye were hardly there at all.

 

 _‘Are you alive?’_ It was all I could do to tell ye that I wasna, tears damming up behind my eyes as you melted away. How could I be alive without ye, you who are my light, my heart and soul?

 

Kiss the children for me. Please. 

 

Tell them that I think of them always, that I **will be home soon.**

 

I love you _mo Sorcha,_ my light. 

 

I remain forever,

 

Your devoted husband,

 

**Captain James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser**

**51 st Highlanders Division**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!


	6. September, 1941

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an act of unknown providence Claire receives Jamie's letters and writes to tell him news of the children that he has not seen in three years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed this so far. Your feedback and support mean the absolute world to me!

**September, 1941**

**Lallybroch, Scotland**

My dear Jamie,

 

Last night I dreamt of you and Willie when he was just a bairn, a few weeks before you were called up.

 

You were sitting in the wingbacked chair in the study at dusk, the fire had burnt low into its embers and whether the girls had gone to bed, I can’t be sure. He had woken us crying about something and you had taken him from my arms and rocked him, soothing him back to sleep with the deep softness of your own tongue.

 

‘Hush now, _mo bhailaich,’_ you whispered, the words softer than the dream itself, fragments of memory caught between the whisps of imagination. Your eyes were shining as you caught my eye; our child cradled in your arms; the warmth and love and strength that radiated from you suddenly so palable that I could scarcely breathe. The words that were lost in darkness now forever imprinted on my heart.

 

**‘Da’s here. I willnae leave ye.’**

 

And Willie… Even in the mists of memory, I can see him as you will remember him; soft face burnished bright with freckles, slanted eyes of honey gold and your hair; as wild and curled and untameable as your own.

 

**How I wish that you could know him, my love!**

**How I wish that you could know them all!**

 

Each day I watch them change, watch Faith blossom into a fiercely protective young woman, a lioness with a mind that sparks with fire, her eyes brimming with love and kindness and Brianna’s wild, untameable spirit burn ever fiercer, longing to be set free and Willie; Willie, the one bond that I wish you could know, that fate is so cruelly trying to sever, grow and love and smile in his sleep.

 

Like you, sweetheart.

 

Like you.

 

My darling, by the grace of whatever god smiles on you, a bundle of your letters arrived today.

 

They’re waterstained and often illegible; but to see your writing- to see, to know that somewhere, you are alive, warms my heart more than I can say. It was all I could do not to kiss the telegram boy, the thin paper crinkling between my fingers. **To know, my love, that was all I wanted.**

 

For the past few months, we’ve crowded into the library to listen to the wireless after supper, desperate for news. Even William has stayed up hours past his bedtime because Faith says ‘he has to know Mam. He needs to know about Da.’ With each day that passes, he looks more and more like you and for that small mercy, I am grateful beyond measure. His ears have little wings like yours and he smiles in his sleep.

 

They all do.

 

I can hear them in the kitchen now, pouring over your letters as I write.

 

They all should have been abed hours ago, but I haven’t the heart to send them up and take the letters back, not when they’ve waited this long for word of you.

_And me? What of you, Sassenach_? I hear you ask, your brows furrowed, your eyes blue triangles of concern.

 

 I sit in your chair, at your desk and watch the light of the paraffin lamp on your desk gutter and spit against the glass, knowing that they are my lights in this world of chaotic darkness, lights that not even the Blitz, not even Hitler and his Staukas can extinguish. I sit and I watch the reflection of a harvest moon dance over the moors, hear the lone cry of a tawny owl as it swoops over the heather, feel the weight of your ring grounding me. Reminding me that even when all hope seems lost, it is still here, even when it cannot be felt.

 

I love you.

 

 **I will always love you.** Never forget that, my darling. Ever.

I remain forever,

 

Your devoted wife,

 

**Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp Fraser**

**Lady Broch Tuarach**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	7. March, 1942

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain James Fraser is moved from Oflag VII C to Oflag VII B and tries to keep the hope of his return alive to his wife and children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all those who have taken the time to read and review this! Your feedback means the world to me!

**March? 1942**

**Oflag VIIBprison Camp**

My dear Sassenach,

 

Forgive my laps in writing, _mo chridhe_.  Officers of the division, myself included, have been moved through Switzerland to Bavaria to stem the overcrowding. These men, these steadfast men to whom I trust my life to, are not the same that held the Abbeville Bridgehead, waiting desperately for word from HC that never came. Their faces are gaunt masks of yellow jaundice, their eyes too big for their sockets as we stumbled through the shadowed darkness of early dawn.

 

We were marched out of Oflag VIIC in the crisp, slate coloured light of a chilled, January dawn, the cries of farewell from those who remained echoing in the stillness. The sun was barely reaching the tips of the skeletal trees, an achingly hard frost cutting out our tattered feet as we were marched to the railway tracks and packed like cattle into tiny carriages strewn with filthy straw and only a bucket to piss in between ten men.

 

Some men, I dinna ken quite how, had managed to hang on to the scraggily remnants of their infantry kits, the tattered remnants of a ground sheet, a blanket thick with mould and mess tins. I canna thank them enough for that small act of warmth and compassion, curled up in whatever space we could find; the hot, wet stench of sweat, straw and urine a putrid, bitter perfume for our nostrils.

 

By the time that we had crossed the border into Bavaria, our stomachs had forgotten how to growl for hunger. I think of the children, think of the birthday cake that you must have made for Brianna’s birthday in October and I could weep if I had the strength for tears. It was only the kindness of the Australian and New Zealand prisoners who have unfortunately found their way here after the Balkans Campaign, that has saved us from starvation. Never have I felt the need for thin, tepid, tattie soup and black bread as much as I did on the first evening, when we were shoved stumbling and shivering into our quarters; a barked command o _f ‘du da drüben! Komm rein!’_ ringing in our ears.

**I love you, mo Sorcha, my light.**

**Kiss the children for me.**

 

Tell them… Tell them what ye will, for I confess that having lived so long in hope, I now do not know.

 

I wish _mo chiride_ … I wish that I could tell ye that I will be home soon, that I will soon be walking over the burnished heather clad moor, coming down the hill and see ye, standing in the shadow of the archway, your amber eyes, etched on Willie’s face, burning in the evening twilight. That I will kiss the girls and swing Willie up onto my shoulders, but my love with each day that passes that hope grows fainter and I wish…

 

Remember me, _mo ghraidh._

 

I remain forever,

 

Your devoted husband,

 

**Captain James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser**

**51 st Highlanders Division**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love x


	8. May, 1942

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Faith Fraser writes to her Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this, your feedback and support mean the world to me!

**May 1942**

**Lallybroch, Scotland**

Dear Da,

 

Mam said that I should write to you, but the truth is that I don’t quite know what to say.

 

Brianna would know, but it’s no’ Brianna writing this, chewing the end of her pen until her lips are tinted blue with ink, it’s me.

 

Faith.

 

Sometimes, when the others aren’t looking and Mam’s seeing patients, I’ll go into the library and look through the letters that Mam’s put on the mantelpiece, feel the worn, thin frailness of the paper beneath my fingers, try to see you. Try to remember the ways that your smile would hide in the corners of your lips when you were pleased wi’ us.

 

Try to conjure up an image of you for Willie, who canna remember what ye look like.  

 

Maggie Murray and I have started volunteering as VADs at the hospital in Broch Mordha. Most of the girls have got fathers fighting and those who haven’t are saying that they want to be angels with their starched white caps flowing off their hair, dabbing at fevered brows and murmuring sweet nothings to their patients.

 

You won’t be surprised that Mam had **quite** a lot to say on that subject when I told her about it on my first evening after work!

 

I… I miss you, Da. I canna say that to anyone, least of all Brianna who says that we shouldn’t think like that; that you will come home, like you say in your letters.

****

**_You will come home, won’t you?_ **

 

I miss the way you’d read to us in the library by the fire, doing all the voices and Mam would chuckle softly by the door and tell us that we were far too spoilt to have a father that should ha’ been in the theatre.

 

I miss that. I miss listening to Mam’s laughter. I miss listening to your stories of Granny and Granddad and when you and Auntie Jenny and Uncle Ian were small, I miss…

 

I know that you’d want me to be brave and I’m trying Da, but it’s hard.

 

It’s hard to feel brave when Willie can’t remember you and looks frightened when people in the village tell him how much he resembles his Da.

 

**_What must it be like to look like a man that you dinna remember?_ **

 

It’s hard to be brave when I wake at night and hear Mam crying in the bathroom when she thinks we’re all asleep but I’m not and I ken that Brianna isn’t either. She used to cry out for you, but she doesn’t any more. She lies there, listening to the soft lullaby of the moor, waiting. Waiting for the creak of the front door to open, for the sound of boots on the stairs, I dinna ken.

**I love you.**

Your loving daughter,

 

Faith Fraser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	9. Return: April, 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven years after he was last on leave, Captain James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser returns home to Inverness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this, your feedback and support mean the world to me!

Return

 

 

**20 th April 1945**

**Ministry of Defence**

**Whitehall**

**Westminster**

**London**

**SW1A 2HB**

Dear Lady Broch Tuarach,

 

I am writing to inform you of the release of your husband, Captain James Fraser from Oflag VIIB prison camp on the 16th of this month and consequently from the service of the 51st Highland Division. He is currently stationed at a Red Cross processing station in Le Havre under the care and supervision of the British Red Cross; a valiant organisation that I remember him saying with great animation that you have worked with.

 

Madam, to hear that you have served your country so valiantly during its’ hours of need makes this letter even more an honour to write.

 

Captain Fraser fought gallantly in the battle for France and in his division’s charge of recapturing the Abbeville Bridgehead on the Somme in 1940. He was well respected amongst his men and fellow officers; showing a level of foresight and understanding that under shellfire and aircraft attacks, was appreciated greatly.

 

Your husband was and is foremost a soldier of the highest order whose personal and professional conduct both befitted both his army rank and his station. It has been an honour and a privilege to serve and know him on both a personal and professional level and I will miss his comradeship in the mess room and the field, particularly in the dark years of our incarceration, more than I can say.

 

On the 22nd April, he will be placed on the 12:00 hours service from London Kings Cross that arrives into Inverness at 20:50 hours.

 

I remain,

 

Yours sincerely,

**Major General Victor Fortune**

**51 st Highlanders Division**

* * *

**21 st April 1945**

**The 2,190 th day**

 

**Le Havre**

**My dear Sassenach,**

How it breaks my heart to write those words! To see them clear in a pen’s ink and not the smudge of charcoal, where it was so easy to forget that they existed!

 

You though...

 

God, Claire, to see you! To see you and the bairns, though they be bairns no more, forbye, is what squeezes my heart so tightly I can scarcely breathe.

 

And yet… And yet I am afraid.

 

Ungodly man that I am, I sit here in the comfort of this cot and find myself shaking, my wame curdled wi’ the shame of having left ye alone for so long, of not knowing my children, of…

 

_Seven years, mo ghraidh!_

_A Dhia, seven years!_

 

My bones scream wi’ the tedium of waiting, of fearing the worst that you would not know, that you would not have received the letter that I was promised would be sent.

 

My heart, my love, to feel the blood pulse and pound through my ears is to hear the demented, never-ending wail of the shells, the echoing rumble of the canon, constant crack of the guns as man upon man, boy upon boy; sweet humanity whom I loved and trusted was cut down far too soon. Is to see the bodies of those survivors curled into shadows of themselves, skeletal fragments of humanity lying frozen on the road west dead in the first flurries of winter’s snow, is to feel the silence come creeping closer…

 

Pray God our Willie doesna live to see such things.

 

Pray that…

* * *

 

**Inverness Railway Station**

**22 nd April 1945**

****

_‘On the 22 nd April, he will be placed on the 12:00 hours service from London Kings Cross that arrives into Inverness at 20:50 hours’_

It is only these words, now memorised and repeated like a mantra, that keep her from running.

 

That keep Willie’s hand firmly tucked inside her own, Brianna and Faith on either side, shielding her as they move like ghosts through the crowded platform, a lamp lit sea of smoke and welcomes, of love returned and love renewed ringing in their ears.

 

And then…

 

And then, framed in a cloud of smoke stands Captain Jamie Fraser.

 

Her Jamie.

 

The light of her life, the father of her children, standing with a face of crumbling composure, on the platform before her.

 

One step.

 

Then another.

 

Sudden, sobbing cries from Faith and Brianna as the world, the façade of strength that she has forced herself to build and become resigned to for so long falls completely and utterly apart.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Jamie…’ His name is a moan, her legs buckling, fingers scrabbling in sudden urgency as words that she has not heard for an eternity break forth, the tidal wave of emotion bursting its banks at last.

 

She barely feels his touch at first as she buries her head in his shoulder, _it’s me._ _C’est moi. Claire._

 

_Mo Sorcha… Mo nighean don… Mo ghriadh…  Oh Jamie… My love… My one, true love…_

Time and space and reason itself seem to stretch and pulse absurdly, she feels Brianna push past her and then Faith, William’s hand still clutched against her coat, the weight of her husband’s face falling into her hands.

 

‘For so long _Sorcha…_ _So long_ …’ His voice is ragged, desperate gasps for air as if he has not taken an easy breath since he left her with the children on the same platform seven years before.

 

‘I know’, she mouths at last, his hand shakily reaching to cup her head hard, the weight of his lips tingling against her scalp.  She never wants to let go, never wants to let the rough coarseness of his hair out from beneath her fingers, never wants to wake ever without the hot, sweet scent of dense male musk from bathing her nostrils in all its’ bliss.

 

Out of the corner of her vision, she sees Faith dabbing furiously at her eyes with a handkerchief, Brianna curled around Jamie’s other side and William, sweet William with his father’s face and her eyes, looking so lost and frightened that her heart splinters again in agony.

 

‘Willie? _Mo bhalaiach?’_ Jamie’s hands slipping away for a moment that feels like an eternity and she bites back the urge to grab hold of them again, hold them, revel in their weight and never, ever let them go.

 

‘Willie?’ His voice is trembling with questions, cracking as he moves towards the boy, his son whom he has not seen in seven years.

 

‘Mam?’ Slanted, amber coloured eyes dart to hers and back again and she sees again the bairn that Jamie remembers, sees Faith’s eyes brim with love, Brianna’s smile saying everything that she could not.

 

**He’s home.**

**He’s really home.**

Feels Faith and Brianna’s hands reach for hers, slipping, twining, clasping together.

**This isn’t a dream Mam. You don’t have to dream any more.**

 

And she bites her lip to stop the tears, nodding frantically, the crack in her heart widening further as Jamie moves in a single stride to meet his son, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

 

Over the hills behind the station, the sun is setting; a graceful arc of fiery red and orange, blazing against the heather, catching the twinned crowns of curls as her husband swings Willie up into his arms. She sees him walking up and down the slowly emptying platform, turning back to look for her and his girls with shining eyes, laughing through his tears.

 

**I’m home, mo nighean don.**

 

**My Sassenach.**

**You never have to be alone again.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


	10. Home: April, 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunited with his family, Captain James Fraser returns to Lallybroch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this! Your support and feedback have meant the world to me and I can't thank any of you enough.
> 
> This story has been based around many personal testimonies from members of the 51st Highlanders Division who were prisoners of war after the battle for France in 1940. Many of them can be found on the divisions website at: http://51hd.co.uk/pow

** Home, April 1945 **

****

Faith drives them home in the battered Land Rover, slowly winding her way along the back roads away from Inverness.

 

Claire curls up in the back with Jamie, shivering under a mound of blankets, Brianna and William curled like kittens in the midsection of seats, the vehicle reeking of dog, horse and wet leather.

 

And home.

 

Family.

 

Family, her family, the lights of her life together after seven achingly long years apart.

 

‘You’re real’, she whispers, revelling in the steadily comforting throb of his heartbeat pounding against her cheek.

 

‘So are you… Sassenach’, his voice cracks into a deep, bloody cough as he bends his head to find her lips, the words shaking in the gathering gloom. The bristles of his stubble tickles, the two-day growth of beard completely at odds with the ragged crop of curls fighting their way back after the icy bite of the barber’s shears.

 

_Oh Jamie._

Curling closer, she takes his head in her hands, feeling the weight of the tears that she cannot stop from falling slip gently onto his cheek.

 

‘I dreamt of ye for so long, _mo Sorcha’,_ he whispers, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips, the light catching at his half-closed eyes suddenly very blue.

 

‘Ye… Ye came to me so often, but…’ Whatever he was going to say is cut off in a grunt as the Land Rover hits a pothole, jerking through into third gear and back again as Faith fights with the gearstick.

 

The hand that finds itself on his shirt clenches, steadies itself, relaxes, remembering the end of the letter. Those five, heartbreakingly simple words smudged in charcoal that she has read and re-read until they are imprinted painfully on her heart.

 

**But ye never touched me.**

 

‘So did you’, she can just about choke the words out, reaching up to caress his cheek.

 

‘Sometimes I’d wake in the night and I’d feel you lying there beside me, holding me. Telling me that you’d come home.’ The words are barely whispered, but she feels his nod, cool lips reaching to kiss her curls in reassurance.

 

_I’m here now, Claire. I willnae leave ye or the bairns ever again, I promise you._

 

His skin shivers with feverish warmth and she squeezes her eyes shut for a moment as she lets her fingers rest against the stubble that lies on his jawline, trying to push the obvious diagnosis from taking over the rational part of her brain.

 

‘When the letters came… I tried…’ She stammers to a stop, burying her head into his chest. There is so much that must be said, far too much and now is not the time for any of it. Not now.

 

‘I ken ye did, _mo duinne’,_ his voice is heavy with exhaustion and she feels for his hand, clasping them together on his chest, listening to the heavy rattle of his breathing, willing him, selfishly perhaps, to stay awake. ‘And I’m grateful for that, truly.’

 

Outside it has started to rain, moisture lashing at the darkened windows, the windscreen wipers groaning against the glass as the shadow of Lallybroch looms into view. Jamie’s shoulders stiffen against her breast, tension singing like a taut wire down the run of his neck as the Land Rover’s wheels’ crunch over the wet gravel and Faith eases the groaning vehicle to a stop.

 

Claire feels the ghost of a smile twitching at her lips at the sight of her eldest daughter disappearing with a grimace into the lashing rain with a slam of the door. She can hear Bran’s bark booming in welcome and a streak of brindled hound mixed with the bobbing glow of a hurricane lamp bounds down to greet them, yapping and fawning as Brianna and William clamber down into the wet.

 

‘We’re home Jamie’, she whispers, feeling the weight of his head shift against her as he pulls himself into a sitting position, turn to face her.

 

‘Home.’ The word is spoken slowly, as if he is unsure whether she speaks the truth. His heart is pounding beneath her fingers and the eyes that find hers are shining with emotion, repeated as the hand with the stiff and broken fingers rises to grip hers as his soul comes fully and completely apart.

 

* * *

 

 

He cannot stop shaking.

 

Cannot slow the thundering pulse of his heart or the searing agony of his breathing, each breath feeling like his lungs are being torn out, piece by painful piece.

 

**Home.**

**Lallybroch.**

The place that has bolstered his dreams, has been a fire in his heart even on the coldest and darkest of nights when he knew that he would die otherwise. The place that held his father’s blood, the memories of his mother and brother and Jenny and Ian, rears before him so he cannot believe that it is truly real.

 

And yet he sees Bran; older, stiffer, grey muzzled, bounding down the final steps. Feels the weight of a wet nose being thrust his midriff, two paws throwing him backward as joyful eyes of liquid brown gaze into his, grinning and fawning over him, sees Faith come down the steps with the hurricane lamp lighting the features that he remembers, blurring into Claire, her face shining with joy as she comes up beside him, tucking an arm under his shoulder.

 

‘Claire....Sorcha…’ Her name feels thick and heavy on his tongue, the amber eyes that had haunted his dreams softening his heart as he accepts her arm up the stairs into the hallway.

 

‘I know Jamie,’ he hears her say with a soft kiss as his legs buckle, her hands gently lowering him to the sofa beneath the stairs.

 

‘I know.’

 

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain


End file.
